Bible Strands
Luke 21:23
How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers! For there will be great distress upon the land and wrath against this people.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Jesus addresses his disciples on the Mount of Olives, describing the imminent period of divine vengeance and national catastrophe that will follow the temple's destruction. The words — Οὐαὶ (Ouai) translates literally to "woe" or "miserable," while γαστρὶ ἐχοῦσαις (gastri echousais) denotes "having a womb" or being pregnant. The thread — This warning echoes Jesus' parallel accounts in Matthew 24:19 and Mark 13:17, while its imagery of maternal suffering during siege aligns with Lamentations 4:10. Why it lands — The text demands recognition that divine wrath bypasses human vulnerability, forcing the reader to weigh the absolute certainty of the coming judgment against present spiritual readiness.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people.
Cross-references
- Lamentations 4:10 The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
- Matthew 24:19 How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers!
- Mark 13:17 How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers!
- Luke 23:29 Look, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore, and breasts that never nursed!’
- Deuteronomy 28:56 The most gentle and refined woman among you, so gentle and refined she would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces and her son and daughter
- 1 Thessalonians 2:16 hindering us from telling the Gentiles how they may be saved. As a result, they continue to heap up their sins to full capacity; the utmost wrath has come upon them.
- Hebrews 10:26 If we deliberately go on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no further sacrifice for sins remains,
- James 5:1 Come now, you who are rich, weep and wail over the misery to come upon you.
- 1 Peter 4:17 For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who disobey the gospel of God?
- Matthew 21:41 “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and will rent out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his share of the fruit at harvest time.”